We Fly

With light-sport aircraft manufacturers seemingly popping up all over the world like mushrooms sprouting after a good rainfall, you may wonder why any company would decide to get into this saturated market. In fact, light-sport guru Dan Johnson currently lists 143 LSA models on his bydanjohnson.com website. But after Glasair was bought by the Chinese […]

Named the Ultra models, Mooney’s modernized Acclaim and Ovation are now FAA-certified and rolling out of the factory at an increasing rate. As a Mooney pilot and owner, I was excited to evaluate the M20U Ovation Ultra in conjunction with Mooney Aircraft Pilots Association’s annual Homecoming Convention, which was held in late September 2017 at […]

“With the CJ3, Cessna got it right.” So I was told when I embarked on a life of flying this attractive airplane. Some 1,200 hours of CJ3 flying later, I can tell you that the airplane is more than attractive. It is amazing. If you put a gun to my head, I wouldn’t have been […]

Settled into the left seat at our final cruise altitude of 26,000 feet, we were showing a true airspeed of 304 knots and burning about 700 pounds of jet-A per hour. As the lush rolling landscape of central Pennsylvania slid by far below, a nagging question had entered my mind. What is it about the […]

The number of single-engine airplanes capable of hauling a ton of cargo or six people around are pretty limited these days. Cessna’s Caravan is a top choice, but that $2.2 million price tag often puts it well out of reach for many pilots. When I spent a day with a Cessna Turbo 206 in Wichita, […]

Only rarely does a benchmark airplane come along that demands the creation of an entirely new category in which to place it, one that shatters conventional thinking with radical leaps in design and operating efficiency. The SF50 Vision Jet from Cirrus Aircraft is one of these uncommon airplanes. As such, the typical spin around the […]

The dwindling remnants of a glorious afternoon sun were disappearing beneath the horizon as I turned the Remos GXiS off the tiny runway at Flugplatz Pasewalk in far northeast Germany. With two hours of fuel remaining in the 22-gallon tank, my first inclination was to simply turn around and blow another hour or so in […]

The addition of Garmin G3000 touch-screen avionics and interior improvements took this turboprop to a different level when it debuted in 2016.

Piper announced the latest iteration of its Meridian turboprop single, which it now calls the M500. I’ll admit up front that my initial reaction upon hearing the news was this: Whenever a company makes a name change to a product and that new name includes a number (in this case, the number 500) I have […]

Kevin McCullough’s grandfather, who started a Commander service center called Aero Air in 1956, used to say: “God never made a low-wing bird.” So when McCullough was old enough to start flying, there wasn’t much choice. “I learned to fly in a Lark Commander, got my multiengine rating in a Shrike Commander and then went […]